Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Sweden: Minister refuses to ensure aid to PA is not used to further antisemitic incitement

Financial aid to the Palestinian Authority should be granted irrespective of its educational policies, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic incitement, a Swedish minister said.

Speaking in parliament at a debate Friday about Stockholm’s assistance to Ramallah, Minister for International Development Cooperation Isabella Lövin said that “support to the education sector or education ministry is not included in the strategy for Palestine decided by the government.”

An MP from the pro-Israel Christian Democrats opposition party, Mikael Oscarsson, had challenged Lövin over the government’s support for the PA. In a written query, he asked how Swedish aid money could be used to get the Palestinians to change the names of 25 schools named after terrorists, how Stockholm could stipulate that payments do not go to causes supportive of terrorism, and whether it would be possible to create a mechanism to ensure Swedish money is not used to further incitement.

In her response Lövin, a member of the Green Party, reiterated her position, first stated in May 2015, that promoting education is not part of Sweden’s development strategy regarding Palestine. Financial aid provides Stockholm with a “possibility to reach out,” she declared in a parliamentary session at the same. “A constant threat to pull back aid is not a way forward.”

The government, she said, already has a set of strategies and goals, and does not plan to impose additional conditions for the provision of foreign aid.